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Materials with self-adaptive mechanical responses have long been sought after in material science. Using computer simulations, researchers at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Hyderabad, now show how such adaptive behavior can emerge in active glasses, which are widely used as models for biological tissues.

The findings, published in the journal Nature Physics, provide new insights—ranging from how cells might regulate their glassiness to aiding in the design of new metamaterials.

Glasses (or amorphous solids) are materials whose components lack any particular ordering. Contrast this with a crystal, where atoms are arranged in neat, repeating patterns on a well-defined lattice. While crystals are ordered and nearly perfect, amorphous materials are defined by their disorder.

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Analyzing massive datasets from nuclear physics experiments can take hours or days to process, but researchers are working to radically reduce that time to mere seconds using special software being developed at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley and Oak Ridge national laboratories.

DELERIA—short for Distributed Event-Level Experiment Readout and Integrated Analysis—is a novel software platform designed specifically to support the GRETA spectrometer, a cutting-edge instrument for nuclear physics experiments. The Gamma Ray Energy Tracking Array (GRETA), is currently under construction at Berkeley Lab and is scheduled to be installed in 2026 at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB), at Michigan State University.

The software will enable GRETA to stream data directly to the nation’s leading computing centers with the goal of analyzing large datasets in seconds. The data will be sent via the Energy Sciences Network, or ESnet. This will allow researchers to make critical adjustments to the experiment as it is taking place, leading to increased scientific productivity with significantly faster, more accurate results.

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When a molecule absorbs light, it undergoes a whirlwind of quantum-mechanical transformations. Electrons jump between energy levels, atoms vibrate, and chemical bonds shift—all within millionths of a billionth of a second.

These processes underpin everything from photosynthesis in plants and DNA damage from sunlight, to the operation of solar cells and light-powered cancer therapies.

Yet despite their importance, chemical processes driven by light are difficult to simulate accurately. Traditional computers struggle, because it takes vast computational power to simulate this quantum behavior.

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The earliest cells harnessed energy through geochemical reactions, a process that LMU researchers have now successfully replicated in the lab. The earliest ancestor of all life on Earth likely thrived in warm environments, relied on hydrogen for energy, and produced methane as a byproduct. Resear

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Scientists have developed a method to alter the color and brightness of rare earth element luminescence by changing their chemical environment, enabling the design of advanced light-emitting materials. Researchers at HSE University and the Institute of Petrochemical Synthesis of the Russian Acade

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Scientists in the US have created a way to 3D print materials inside the body using ultrasound. Tests in mice and rabbits suggest the technique could deliver cancer drugs directly to organs and repair injured tissue.

Dubbed deep tissue in vivo sound printing (DISP), the method involves injecting a specialized bioink. Ingredients can vary depending on their intended function in the body, but the non-negotiables are polymer chains and crosslinking agents to assemble them into a hydrogel structure.

To keep the hydrogel from forming instantly, the crosslinking agents are locked inside lipid-based particles called liposomes, with outer shells designed to leak when heated to 41.7 °C (107.1 °F) – a few degrees above body temperature.

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On the night of Saturday 17 May, skywatchers across the US as far south as New Mexico were treated to a peculiar sight: a brilliant stream of whitish light, stretching across the sky.

That was a night for auroral activity, as Earth’s magnetic field was buffeted by an influx of particles ejected from the Sun several days earlier. Initially, explanations favored STEVE, the name given to the white-mauve streaks of light emitted by rivers of charged particles flowing through Earth’s ionosphere.

STEVE is not an aurora, but, like the auroral displays it often appears alongside, is also a product of space weather.

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Launched on March 11, NASA’s SPHEREx space observatory has spent the last six weeks undergoing checkouts, calibrations, and other activities to ensure it is working as it should. Now it’s mapping the entire sky—not just a large part of it—to chart the positions of hundreds of millions of galaxies in 3D to answer some big questions about the universe.

On May 1, the spacecraft began regular science operations, which consist of taking about 3,600 images per day for the next two years to provide new insights about the origins of the universe, galaxies, and the ingredients for life in the Milky Way.

“Thanks to the hard work of teams across NASA, industry, and academia that built this mission, SPHEREx is operating just as we’d expected and will produce maps of the full sky unlike any we’ve had before,” said Shawn Domagal-Goldman, acting director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

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Anti-inflammatory drug JAK inhibitors (JAKi) reduces pain in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) but the mechanism is not clear.

To figure out if JAKi directly acted on human sensory neurons, the authors found they expressed JAK1 and STAT3.

The show that RA synovial fluid addition to human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived sensory neurons led to phosphorylation of STAT3 (pSTAT3), which was completely blocked by the JAKi tofacitinib.

The researchers also discovered that RA synovial fluid was enriched for the STAT3 signalling cytokines IL-6, IL-11, LIF, IFN-alpha and IFN-beta, and their requisite receptors present in peripheral nerves post-mortem.

They observed upregulation of pain-relevant genes with STAT3-binding sites, an effect which was blocked by tofacitinib in cytokine treated iPSCs. LIF also induced neuronal sensitisation, highlighting this molecule as a putative pain mediator.

Tofacitinib reduced the firing rate of sensory neurons stimulated with RA synovial fluid indicating role for JAKi in controlling analgesic properties. https://sciencemission.com/RA-synovial-fluid-induces-JAK-dep…tivation-o

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